A Womanist Reading Of The Color Purple

Alice Walker, an influential black female writer, ever involved herself in the Civil RightsMovement and the Women’s Liberation Movement and was deeply affected by the traditionalfeminism. She nearly spent most of her life on striving for women’s liberation and racialequality. Most of her works concerned with black women’s reality, showing black women’shatred and love during their struggle for self-identity and self-independence. As AliceWalker’s representative work, The Color Purple has been widely read since it was publishedin1982, for which Alice Walker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She also initiated the nowterm “womanism” to differentiate it from the “feminism”. Different from traditionalfeminism, womanism focused on the colored women’s liberation and was committed tosurvival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.Through analyzing the reality of the black women, this thesis mainly discusses theprocess of black women’s liberation from the awakening to economic independence. Underthe double oppression, black women not only suffer from the racial oppression that whitepeople presses on them, but also suffer from the sexual oppression that black men press onthem, so black women’s situation is complicated. If black women want to gain their liberationand independence, they have to gain female self-consciousness as well as use their femaleconsciousness to fight against their oppressors. During the course of their fighting, firstlythey have to resort to the sisterhood to strengthen their power, secondly they have to changeblack men’s attitude toward them. Through struggling for the co-existence of all the races,both women and men finally can reach a harmonious state. Just as Alice Walker hopes, itdescribes a happy ending to embody that all the people, no matter what color they are and nomatter what gender they are could survive harmoniously as a whole. This is a part of AliceWalker’s womanism. Different from the traditional feminism, it is not to separate womenfrom men but to advocates a situation that all the races could live together harmoniously.Accordingly, this thesis consists three chapters besides an introduction and a conclusion.The introduction of this thesis mainly introduces the basic information of Alice walker, herworks The Color Purple and her theory of womanism, providing readers a specific explanation about the author’s background and her womanism.Chapter one explores the reasons for the existence under double oppression upon theblack women. On the one hand, racial oppression has existed for a long time in the society;blacks were shipped by Europeans to America as slaves, so they have suffered from racismsince then. On the other hand, black women have to endure black men’s oppression in afamily. Through analyzing the double oppression in the novel, readers can get a betterunderstanding of the black women’s reality and this chapter paves a way for the secondchapter to analyze black women’s liberation road.Chapter two, which is divided into three parts, focuses on the awakening and theindependence of black women. The first part is an analysis of the stage of resigning to destinyfor black women. Long-time oppression has made black women lose their femaleconsciousness; they dare not say no to the oppressors. The second part is the stage ofawakening. With the help of black sisters, the protagonist Celie begins to awaken in spirit.The third part, as the crucial part, describes a happy ending that black women cast off blackmen’s control and gain their economic independence.Chapter three makes a detailed analysis of the harmonious love, which is part ofWalker’s tentative solution—womanism in the hope of getting rid of the social disease ofsexism and racism and finally reaching a harmony and a wholeness, no matter what colorhe/she is, both men and women.The conclusion of this thesis delivers a summary and again it emphasizes the importanceof Alice Walker’s ideology womanism reflected in The Color Purple. It raises black women’sfemale consciousness to revolt against the double oppression and offers a way for blackwomen’s independence and guides them to achieve harmonious co-existence with the whitepeople and black men...